


One, Two, And Step

by Haicrescendo



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/M, Gen, Implied Zukka, Underage Drinking, a small taste of Zuko’s adventures in prison, as if the older members of team avatar don’t deserve a fucking drink, background jinko, dancing as metaphor, implied jetko, implied maiko, i’m going to make a one-shot so self indulgent, mostly canon compliant ish?, please don’t ever use my tags for anything useful
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-17 16:02:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29228151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Haicrescendo/pseuds/Haicrescendo
Summary: [Fire Lord Azulon doesn’t dance. He doesn’t dance and none of the other royals dance and none of the nobles dance, and definitely no one dances in public. Not in the Caldera.That doesn’t mean, sometimes, that Mama doesn’t do it. Sometimes, after a public event or celebration, when she hassles both of her children off to bed, she’ll sweep them by turn into a loose, uncoordinated waltz in the halls. Even Azula, the perfect little model of their father, gets caught up in Mama’s joyful mood to throw away her mantle of perfection and throw her hands into the air, whirling and turning like a firework. Zuko grabs onto Mama’s hands, letting her spin him around and tug him close into a hug by turns.]Or,A story told in footsteps.
Comments: 48
Kudos: 554
Collections: zuko best boi





	One, Two, And Step

* * *

  
(Just because dancing isn’t encouraged in the Fire Nation doesn’t mean that it doesn’t happen.)  
  
Fire Lord Azulon doesn’t dance. He doesn’t dance and none of the other royals dance and none of the nobles dance, and _definitely_ no one dances in public. Not in the Caldera.

That doesn’t mean, sometimes, that Mama doesn’t do it. Sometimes, after a public event or celebration, when she hassles both of her children off to bed, she’ll sweep them by turn into a loose, uncoordinated waltz in the halls. Even Azula, the perfect little model of their father, gets caught up in Mama’s joyful mood to throw away her mantle of perfection and throw her hands into the air, whirling and turning like a firework. Zuko grabs onto Mama’s hands, letting her spin him around and tug him close into a hug by turns.

It’s easy to remember, at times like these, the things that Zuko loves.

It’s easy to see the childish delight in his sister and the love of his mother. The bright, sparkling joy stays with him even after he’s tucked carefully into bed and lingers underneath his skin as he falls asleep to keep him warm.

* * *

Life’s a pretty mirror and then it shatters. It can’t be put back together again.

Lu Ten’s dead, Grandfather is dead, Mom is _gone_ …and Zuko doesn’t have to be told to shove the feelings of dancing through the halls back into the drawer where they belong. He’s the crown prince of his nation and he doesn’t have the space in him for this.

Feelings and memories, he knows without needing to be told or taught, will not help him now.

* * *

“Stop looking so sour, nephew.”

Uncle pokes his elbow into Zuko’s ribs. Zuko scowls at him and scoots away from his badgering. It’s _music night_ , and they’re in port, and Uncle insisted that the crew deserved something special, which explains the free flowing booze and...much less about what’s currently happening.

Zuko does not want to ever see Jee blush at a barmaid for pouring him an extra shot on the house. Ever. That is not in his job description and should, in fact, be considered on-the-job harassment. The tavern’s dimly lit but raucous and loud, and the only reason that Zuko’s here right now is that he let Uncle bully him into it.

His crew’s happy, though, and Uncle’s happy enough, so Zuko supposes that he can let them have that. For a little while, anyway, until eye strain and the inevitable headache win out. Zuko doesn’t even have a headache yet and his head hurts just thinking about it. 

In the corner, Teruko is _smoking_. And smiling. It’s creepy.

Zuko makes a face and Uncle elbows him again. Zuko scoots and Uncle scoots after him. 

Zuko doesn’t know what he’ll do when he hits the wall and has nowhere left to scoot. Maybe he’ll just have to burn this place to the ground.

“You could try to be less miserable,” Uncle points out.

“Will it help me find the Avatar?” Zuko asks.

“It might.”

Zuko does not dignify that with an answer, and decides that watching Jee _kiss the barmaid on her knuckles_ is the lesser evil here.

“Go dance, Prince Zuko. It might sweeten your temper.”

Zuko gives a little snort of disgust. He can’t look at any of them any longer and lurches out of his seat with a rattle that goes unnoticed in the din.

“I’m not going to dance, Uncle!” He spit-snarls. At his sides, his fists are white-knuckled and it’s everything he has to not let them heat up. “I’m going to _bed._ ”

And Zuko stomps his way out of the tavern, swipes Jee’s shot on the way out and downs it without a backwards glance. He stomps all the way through town and all the way down to the harbor. He indulges in the urge to clank all the way up the plank onto his ship, down the halls, and into his bedroom.

Spitefully, Zuko gets into bed fully dressed because he’s too annoyed to want to feel comfortable. Zuko doesn’t want to think about how joyfully the musicians played, a little too drunk to be truly good but banking on enthusiasm to count for _something._ Zuko doesn’t want to think about how his room on _The Wani_ looks nothing like his bedroom back home. Home that he’ll never see again at this rate.

Zuko doesn’t want to think about anything.

* * *

Zuko hates Ba Sing Se.

It’s too big and too crowded and too brown with its rings and walls and buildings as far as the eye can see. Zuko hates Ba Sing Se because it makes him feel small and it makes him think about things he doesn’t want to think about, tiny and unimportant and irrelevant. The things that Zuko is good at are unnecessary here.

Zuko hates Ba Sing Se but Uncle is happy here. Uncle is happy and wants Zuko to be happy too, for whatever reason, and he’s followed Zuko down enough thorny paths that Zuko owes him this. Zuko’s not good at anything in this city but Uncle is happy— _really_ happy, to make tea all day and to pretend like this city is home. So for him, and only for him, Zuko can try.

He knows right away that he doesn’t want anything serious with Jin, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t nice to have something like a friend. She doesn’t want anything serious from him either, just harasses him in the shop every few days for discounts and drags him out of his shifts early with Uncle’s cheerful blessing. She doesn’t make his heart race and he doesn’t overthink every little interaction he has with her after it’s happened, but it’s nice, sometimes, to have someone’s hand to hold for no other reason than that he wants to.

_You know that you’re not marriage material at all, right?_ She asks him out of the blue. Maybe it’s supposed to be a date, but all Zuko’s really interested in is when the noodles they ordered are going to come and how spicy this shop’s version of ‘extra spicy’ is. Probably not very. Ba Sing Se has pretty okay food except that it tends to be bland as hell.

_As if anyone would wanna marry you either_ , Zuko grumbles back, and Jin howls with laughter.

The noodles come and they’re not even remotely spicy but they’re still tasty enough that Zuko’s not going to complain about it. They’re not spicy enough but sticky with a brown sugar and grass-garlic sauce, and Zuko tastes them again when he lets Jin haul him into the alley next door and kiss him stupid.

Zuko doesn’t try to do the romance thing again like the first time, but he doesn’t dislike going out with her. She’s fun and it’s easy to follow her lead. Jin doesn’t ask much of him except company and some casual handholding and some kissing here and there, and Zuko’s...unexpectedly okay with it. Even the kissing. Maybe especially the kissing?

He’s told her almost nothing truthful about himself but it doesn’t ever really seem to matter as long as he shows up on time and pays every so often. Three years on a boat and this is where Zuko feels the most at sea and drifting, flowing where the current pushes.

Jin drags him out dancing. It’s the first time that Zuko really resists one of her plans and his vehemence surprises her, as is his determination to sulk by the wall while she threatens to go find someone else to dance with.

“Fine,” Zuko tells her shortly, “Go ahead. I didn’t want to come here anyway.”

Jin scowls at him and Zuko has the feeling that if she was holding a cup of tea, he’d be getting wet right about now. She scowls, puffed up and offended like an annoyed pygmy-puma, opens her mouth like she’s going to say something sharp...and then pauses.

Zuko flinches and waits, and it never comes.

“What’s _wrong_?” Jin asks him quietly after a moment, sidling closer and reaching out to take his arm. Zuko lets her even if he can’t meet her eyes.

“I don’t like dancing.” His words are quiet underneath the music but he knows they carry far enough.

“Have you even done it before? How do you know you don’t like it?”

Zuko’s swallows around the lump in his throat. He can’t tell Jin _anything_. He can’t tell her anything that’s real.

“I just know, okay?”

Jin frowns.

“Nope. Not okay. Come on!” And then she’s pulling him by the arm still trapped in her clutches onto the dance floor. It’s a mess of people, crowded and loud. Awkward and unhappy about it, Zuko’s sure that he's going to be stared at.

No one pays either of them a single whit of attention, too wrapped up in their own good time that he doesn’t even register as something to notice.

_There is no war in Ba Sing Se._

_There is no war in Ba Sing Se._

“Spirits above, can you calm down?” Jin scolds him, “These steps are not hard. Nobody cares.”

Zuko does not calm down. He tries to think of the steps to the dance like the broken down movements to a kata, and finds that they make sense that way. Everything is numbered and Zuko can at least follow a tempo, so even if he’s no naturally brilliant, dancing star, he can at least keep up. Jin seems happy enough, at least, content to let herself be spun and reeled until the inevitable end in which Zuko escapes as quickly as he can.

She doesn’t ask him to do it again, for which he’s grateful, but also a little sad.

* * *

Everything goes to Koh’s lair in a handbasket.

It’s all Zuko’s fault and he tells himself that he did the right thing even though, with every day that passes, he feels like maybe he didn’t.

* * *

Prison could be a lot worse, honestly.

Like, obviously Zuko doesn’t _enjoy_ it, but it’s less responsibility than he’s had in a while. It’s kind of nice to have to do nothing but pick fights in the prison yard and eat when he’s told, and nicer still to sleep in a metal-lined box every night and be secure in the fact that _probably_ no one here is going to try and assassinate him.

Not that people wouldn’t want to or wouldn’t try if given the chance, but the ones who’d want to are _also_ sleeping in a metal box.

So it could be a lot worse.

The point isn’t that Zuko is enjoying prison, the point is that it’s not as bad as he expected. Beats starving, anyway, and once leisure time stops being an unpleasant game of cock on the rock, it’s really not hard to make friends. Friends? Could they really be called friends?

To be fair, most everyone here _did_ commit some kind of crime, even if it’s not Zuko’s own laundry list of charges that starts with high treason.

Zuko may be garbage at pai sho but he turns out to be a pretty decent card shark, and the combination of winning back his neighbor’s snuff box and being fluent in sailor swears means that he gets someone on his side pretty quickly. Yao’s the kind of noisy dude who kicks the joining wall between them at night when Zuko has too many screaming nightmares and then slips Zuko his flask of toilet hooch the next morning. Zuko doesn’t drink it because that’s a mistake he only needs to make once, but it’s a nice gesture.

“—and then you take her into your arms, pull her to your bosom, and you—“

“Yao, I promise you, if I hear _one more thing_ about how you’re going to greet the noodle-maker’s wife when you get out of here, I’m breaking through this wall and strangling you with my bare hands.”

“You only say that because you don’t have anybody to do that with. Poor lad, repressed as anything.”

“I’m not _repressed_!” Zuko sputters, jolting upright before he can remember that the original plan had been to ignore the whole thing. Zuko’s never been able to ignore anything and Yao’s _sympathy_ of all things gets on his nerves. “I just don’t want to hear about it. We’re three hours to sunup. _Go to bed.”_

“No girls for you, then?” Yao laughs at himself and then goes quiet. “Boys, instead? Both? Neither?”

Zuko remembers sharp, dark eyes and sharper words, and he remembers a warm hand tugging him around a city he reluctantly grew to like, and he remembers a boy on a boat and swords at his throat. He remembers the feeling of a dark hand wrapping around his forearm to keep him from making one more choice he might regret. Nobody can see him, but Zuko shrugs anyway.

“Who knows,” he says.

There’s a moment of quiet, and Zuko knows that it won’t last for very long.

“You ever danced before, boy?”

Zuko doesn’t chuck his Boiling Rock-issued sandal at the wall but it is a near thing. Yao can’t see him so he sulks openly, glaring at the ceiling like it’s personally done him dirty.

There’s a funny rustling noise from Yao’s cell and then the sound of a familiar-ish sliding tap of feet along the floor—

“You had better not be trying to give me dance lessons from over there. I will hurt you.”

“You may try. One, two, three, one, two, three…”

Zuko groans, loudly enough that his other neighbor throws his slipper at _their_ adjoining wall, and shoves his head underneath his flat, meager pillow as if that will help him. It doesn’t, of course, but Zuko ends up falling asleep to the almost-lullaby of Yao humming his off-key waltz.

Zuko really doesn’t _like_ prison, but it could be a lot worse.

* * *

The crown is a heavy thing on Zuko’s head but he knows that it isn’t what threatens to topple him. The world is a mess, his _nation_ is a mess, and one golden headpiece is the only thing that tells the world that he’s responsible for fixing it. He doesn’t even know to start, much less how to sustain the change in the long term.

Zuko still feels like a sailor, a hunter, a fighter—not a prince, not a Fire Lord, and he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do.

This is a start, though, he decides upon looking over the room. The main hall, formerly a ballroom, back when such things would happen more regularly, is bedecked brightly in colors that aren’t limited to red. Red’s there, of course, twisted in with greens and blues and yellows, browns and oranges, an explosion of color that Zuko’s never seen in his life. The room is bright and full of people from all over the world, relieved but watchful.

Wary and waiting to see what the newest Fire Lord is going to do.

The newest Fire Lord is going to sit and be still and be what his people need, even if right now, he feels like he’d rather be climbing the walls.

“Sifu Hotman!”

Zuko looks up just in time to a yellow and orange blur bounding into his personal space. Aang looks right at home among the festivities. Zuko’s envious of that, but doesn’t begrudge him.

“What are you doing?”

Zuko blinks. He thought it was obvious.

“I’m...sitting? Watching?”

Aang frowns.

“That doesn’t look like much fun.”

Zuko shrugs. He’s never been particularly great during public functions, never really took to them the way the rest of his family seemed to so easily manage. Even Father could drum up some charisma when he really wanted something. Zuko? All Zuko’s got is a bad attitude and malfunctioning verbal filter.

“It’s fine.”

“No, it’s not!” And then Aang darts forward to grab Zuko by the hand, dragging him off of his dais. “This party is mostly for you! You can’t just be a stick all night.”

Zuko means to protest except that his brand new guards are _twitchy_ at the idea of him being manhandled and haven’t realized yet that Zuko’s friends possess blanket permission to pretty much manhandle him as much as they please. He visualizes, just for a moment, the idea of someone trying to manhandle his father, or his grandfather, and it’s simultaneously hilarious and terrifying. He cannot blame his people their fear.

Nevertheless, there’s no time like the present. They may as well get used to it.

So in the end, Zuko waves off his anxious, flustered guards and allows himself to be tugged into the center of the room. The hired musicians from the Earth Kingdom are playing something bright and jaunty, and it takes Zuko a moment to realize that Aang is bouncing on his heels in rhythm. He digs his own heels in.

“Oh, no way am I dancing with you—“

“Too bad!” Aang grabs at Zuko’s other hand and ignores the his sputtering to pull him around in a circle, “You don’t have a choice.”

“Who says?!”

“Me!” Comes out of nowhere from Zuko’s other side, and Toph yanks one of Zuko’s hands into her own. “Don’t be boring, Sparky. Live a little.” Her dancing is a direct opposite of Aang’s, all heavy stomping as if the point is to make as much noise as possible. “I wanna know how fire folks dance.”

Zuko opens his mouth to protest, to say that _fire folks_ don’t dance at all, but finds that it would be a lie. He tries to not think about his mother very much, especially in the wake of Azula’s breakdown, because all it does in the end is _hurt_ —

Except that right now, all he can feel are his friends’ fingers wrapped around his. 

“Have you even eaten anything yet?” Sokka’s balancing two ceramic plates and a bowl of what looks like way too many dumplings between his hands. Suki’s firm hands on his crutches are definitely the only reason he’s upright. “You’re missin’ out, bud; my mouth is on fire. I love it.” Zuko opens his mouth to protest and gets a tiny bao filled with chili-spiced komodo chicken stuffed into it instead. “Eat or you’ll pass out before the night’s over. I know what a good party looks like.”

It doesn’t matter how long the party goes on. Zuko is Fire Lord and he can go to bed whenever he wants to. 

Still, it’s nice to be passed around between his friends. Zuko’s never left alone for too long; sips of plum wine with Sokka and Suki, a few moments with Katara’s hands on his temples to deal with what has the potential to be a hell of a headache. At one point during the evening, a few of the Zuko’s advisors (holdovers from his father, which Zuko will be dealing with in the morning) try to corner him and talk policy, except that they can’t because with one stomp of her bare, dirty feet, Toph’s erected a box around them out of the tiles. It buys Zuko enough time to make a very polite run for it. 

He can still hear her cackling across the room, just over the muffled shouts coming from the box.

“You gonna stop her?” Suki’s a little flushed high on her cheekbones from the wine but still plenty alert as she slings her arm over Zuko’s shoulders.

“Do I look stupid to you? Don’t answer that. I know when to pick my battles.” And that is the most egregious lie that Zuko’s ever told and both of them know it. Zuko’s _never_ known when to pick his battles. “A little time in a box might be good for them. You know. For world peace.”

“For world peace,” Suki agrees. Zuko’s not holding anything to drink but she clinks her cup against his curled, offered knuckles. Zuko lets himself bask, just for a couple of moments. He’s enjoyed himself more than he thought he would, but it would be a lie if he said that at any point he’s been _relaxed._

But, for now, the attention of the room is still mostly on the banging and the yelling from Toph’s box instead of on him, and Zuko takes the moment to just stand there and breathe.

“Gonna make it, Fire Lord?”

Zuko scans the room, passing over the people he doesn’t know to focus on his friends. He can see Aang and Katara, hands clasped together and spinning aimlessly, content to be directionless. Toph releases his ministers from their kiln-fired prison and then joins them with a triumphant hoot. Their joy, bright and carefree, is palpable.

“Come on, let’s go dance.”

Sokka is _not_ Aang and Zuko doesn’t feel remotely bad for struggling. Doesn’t feel bad, at least, until Suki takes him by the opposite arm and helps Sokka strong arm him back into the thick of things.

“Do I have to bring up the time not so way back when that you burned down my—“

“ _No, you do not.”_

Zuko doesn’t remember much of what happens after that. The rest of the night is a warm, bright haze that involves more eating, drinking, and merrymaking than Zuko thinks he’s done in his entire life. Even when things were good, they weren’t like this.

He remembers a steady stream of easy to eat finger foods pushed on him every so often and small, dusty fingers yanking him around the room with gusto. He remembers a few more drinks, toasts made up solely as an excuse for the room to cheer. He remembers the moment that things begin to slow down and start to drag, and being gently pulled through the halls toward his bedroom.

His _old_ bedroom. It’s been suggested exactly one time that the newly crowned Fire Lord should sleep in the Fire Lord’s quarters and then never again. Not after Zuko squeezed his peargerine so hard that fruit pulp went everywhere, including the face of the person who had asked. It hasn’t been mentioned since.

He’s too old to be tucked into bed like a baby but Zuko lets it happen anyway, lets Uncle push him into his bed and carefully tuck the edges of the blankets around his body. They both know that statistically, Zuko will end up on the floor at some point during the night, but it’s nice to pretend that he won’t. For once, Zuko doesn’t have the space inside him to worry about what’s going to happen next, what he’s going to do or how he’s going to fare when Uncle Iroh is no longer around to hold his hand.

That’s future Zuko’s problem.

Current Zuko is happy enough to be exactly where he is, physically still but mentally still spinning, spinning, spinning.

“Hey, Uncle?” He mumbles, batting blindly around in the blankets for a hand that finds his almost immediately. “Uncle”

“Yes, Nephew?”

“Did I,” Zuko blinks blearily in the dark, “Did I do okay?”

He’s asleep before he knows the answer.

* * *

Izumi is the most perfect, precious thing in Zuko’s life.

Every day, Zuko understands less and less about his own childhood, because with every day he calls himself her father, the more certain he is that he would kill, burn, and die to keep her safe. Every day that she exists in this world is a better one, and seeing her more carefree and _safe_ than he ever was makes his heart hurt.

“Daddy!” She grabs him by the hands and squeezes, steps up onto his feet, “Dance with me!”

And Fire Lord Zuko looks down at his fearless, endlessly trusting little daughter and does.

* * *


End file.
